Centrica Business Solutions Helps Customers Stay Resilient

ISELIN, N.J., March 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Centrica Business Solutions is now giving customers the opportunity to prepare their business for the unknown with resilience measures. In total, 92% of U.S. organizations surveyed have experienced at least one energy failure in the last year. This is a key finding from Centrica Business Solutions' research into the current state of energy resilience. The Resilience Report, which details the findings, is a result of a survey of more than 850 decision makers and influencers across the U.S., U.K., Ireland and Italy.

A considerable number of U.S. survey respondents admit to being unprepared to deal with disruptions from a range of common sources:

• One in three is unprepared for temporary grid failures;
• One in four is not prepared for poorly maintained in-house equipment; and,
• One in five is not prepared for extreme weather.

Energy resilience, having a secure and reliable source of energy, helps companies reduce the risk of operational failures and reduce commercial risk. Centrica Business Solutions delivers cogeneration, backup power generation and energy insight technology that can help ensure power supply, reduce operational failures, minimize commercial risks for customers, and protect against market disruption. 

In 2017 alone, there were 16 weather and climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each across the United States according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)¹. Though it can be challenging to predict exactly how and when extreme weather might strike, the chances are it will. In fact, 81% of organizations surveyed have had their energy supply hit by a weather event in the last year.

"Over the last year especially, we've seen the devastating effects storms can have on our communities and businesses," said Stephen Prince, Senior Vice President, Centrica Business Solutions North America. "At Centrica Business Solutions, we care about our customers and communities, so we make it a priority to find the newest technologies to give our customers more control over their energy usage. In partnership with our sister company, Direct Energy Business, we offer a portfolio of energy supply and distributed energy solutions, enabling customers to be more resilient than ever."

Loss of power can be harmful and costly for businesses. Of the organizations surveyed, 11% say that an outage of just one hour would be catastrophic. Operational downtime itself is a major issue – and one that 49% of organizations surveyed have experienced because of an energy failure. However, the problems don't end once the power comes back. 24% of organizations report losing inventory, while 35% have had equipment damaged following an energy failure. And 36% of companies attribute lost revenue to disruptions in power.

The suite of resilience offerings is geared toward giving customers more options around energy management, such as shifting load from the utility grid to on-site generation and storage solutions.

A key part of the company's offer is the Combined Heat and Power (CHP) solution and Rudox Power Generation solutions. Centrica Business Solutions' new facility opened in late 2017 in East Rutherford, New Jersey, after recent client demand for resilience solutions. The company moved from Carlstadt, NJ, to accommodate a larger production space for standby power generation and CHP. The new facility features various staging areas of the production process, along with test bays allowing our clients to test all equipment locally prior to delivery. The facility also houses an extensive rental equipment fleet, parts and service departments, and equipment remote monitoring operations.      

For the full Resilience Report: Measuring the business impact of energy-related failures and creating an energy resilient future, visit: https://www.centricabusinesssolutions.com/us/resilience

Centrica Business Solutions has developed a benchmarking tool, which allows organizations to assess their preparedness for energy disruption. The tool is free to use and can be found at: https://www.centricabusinesssolutions.com/us/poweron.

About Centrica Business Solutions
Centrica Business Solutions is part of Centrica plc – an international energy and services company dedicated to satisfying the changing needs of its customers. Centrica Business Solutions has been established to help customers gain competitive advantage from energy, building intelligent end-to-end energy solutions that power performance, and resilience. Through Centrica we also provide energy trading services, and supply energy through Direct Energy in North America, British Gas in the UK, and Bord Gàis Energy in Ireland. To learn more about Centrica Business Solutions, please visit: www.centricabusinesssolutions.com.

About the survey
The research surveyed 866 decision-makers across a range of industries in the U.S., U.K.,Ireland and Italy. Every individual surveyed had a responsibility for energy and/or operational effectiveness within their business.  The research was conducted by B2B specialist Circle Research using an online methodology.

¹https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/events/US/1980-2017

SOURCE Centrica Business Solutions

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